Thanks so much for the reviews! I'm really glad you guys are still enjoying this fanfiction! I can't believe it's at 38 Chapters now! When I started writing this I never dreamed it would be this well liked or take this many chapters to write! I don't know how many more chapters this has left for me to get it finished but I think I'm going to be said to see it end, I've kinda gown attached to it and don't want to stop writing it.
"Sanji-kun?! What are you doing out of bed?!"
Nami walked into the kitchen the next day to find Sanji cooking.
"We're going to reach the Island soon…. I'm not staying behind…."
Nami sighed, "Sanji-kun, I understand how you feel… but you're in no condition to fight!"
"I DON'T CARE!"
Nami stared at him with wide eyes. Sanji had just yelled at her! Sanji! Her sweet prince, her gentlecook, who's never so much as raised a finger to a girl before actually yelled at her!"
Sanji's expression changed from anger to shock and guilt, "N-nami-san…. I-I'm sorry…. I-I didn't mean to…."
"I know…. But… if you fight in this condition you could get killed."
"But if I don't…." He stopped turning his gaze to the floor.
"If you don't what?"
A tear welled up in his visible eye as he continued to watch the floor.
"Sanji-kun?"
"If I don't… I'll… I'll only prove him right…. I-I can't… I can't give him that satisfaction! And as soon as they go back to normal…. They'll just rub it in my face… and… a-and…."
Nami walked up to Sanji and wrapped her arms around him. Burying her face in his neck she said, "It's okay…. It's going to be okay…. Sanji-kun, you won't be proving anything! What he thinks of you… it doesn't matter! What matters is what we think! You know what we think… don't you?"
"Mmhmm," he nodded once.
"Then promise me that you won't do anything stupid. Promise me that if you do go to the island with us… you won't get involved in the fight."
"O-okay."
"I'll go to the town and get a room at an Inn for you to rest in."
"But that costs money!" Sanji replied pulling away from her.
"That's okay. I'll just add it to your debt."
Sanji sighed, "no mercy even for the guy you're dating."
"Hey I never said how much you'll owe me," she smiled. "Not to mention you can't really say that we're dating when we haven't even gone on our first date yet."
"Oh and how much do I owe you?"
She stood on her toes so she could reach his ear. "How about dinner for two when we're done here?"
Sanji's face lit up like a child who just walked into a candy store with all you can eat free samples (That store is going to go out of business real fast!), "Really!"
"And if it's to my liking, you won't owe me a single berry."
"I can do that!"
"I'm sure you can," she smiled before giving him a kiss and leaving the kitchen.
Ichiji stared out the window of the crow's nest waiting impatiently for an island to come into sight. He woke up about an hour before the sun rose but didn't feel like going down to the deck yet. He turned around when he heard some movement behind him. Niji had woken up and was sitting up stretching.
"Morning, Ichi," he said before throwing a pillow at Yonji, waking him up. "I guess we're finally almost there, huh?"
"Hey!" Yonji said. "Stop throwing things you two!"
"Yeah. Well at least we'll get there sometime today anyway. Yonji, look at the pillow…. First off there is only one and second it's blue… not red…. There for both of us couldn't possibly thrown it."
"Niji! Stop throwing things!"
"Yeah… don't feel like it. That was payback for the 'Niji's afraid of thunder' statement…. Now to make you pay for pulling my hair yesterday."
"Would you two stop acting like children and come down to see if the old geezer has breakfast ready?" Ichiji said opening up the hatch in the floor.
At that Yonji sped off, flying to the deck.
"Hey! Wait for us!" Niji hollered after him.
Ichiji sighed, now sitting on the floor after Yonji pushed him aside to get to the food. "Idiots," he muttered before following them.
"Hmm?" Yonji said freezing in front of the kitchen door.
"What's the matter?" Ichiji asked when he walked up behind the two.
"Shhh," he said, waving a hand and pressing his ear up against the door.
"I DON'T CARE!"
"Ouch!" Yonji said, jumping back from the door, rubbing his ear.
"What the hell is Sanji doing out of bed?!" Niji said quietly as he and Ichiji got closer so they could hear better.
Ichiji reached up to crack open the door, hoping Sanji and whoever else was in there didn't notice.
"N-nami-san…. I-I'm sorry…. I-I didn't mean to…." They heard him say, his voice filled with guilt.
The three brothers looked at each other. Did Sanji seriously just yell at Nami? They asked each other, but without using their voices.
"I know…. But… if you fight in this condition you could get killed," they heard the navigator reply, her voice filled with worry.
"But if I don't…."
"If you don't what?" There was a long period of silence before Nami spoke again. "Sanji-kun?"
They could hear a quiver in the third brother's voice when he finally responded, "If I don't… I'll… I'll only prove him right…. I-I can't… I can't give him that satisfaction! And as soon as they go back to normal…. They'll just rub it in my face… and… a-and…."
They didn't need Sanji to say any names to know who he was talking about. The three brothers turned their gaze to their feet and walked silently to the mast. They sat on the bench in silence for ten minutes before Ichiji finally said, "We're ass holes."
Niji and Yonji nodded in agreement.
"It's like, no matter what he says, there's a part of him that feels like he needs to prove himself to Dad… and apparently… us," Niji said leaning his head back against the mast. "Or at least the emotionless us anyway."
"Can you really blame him?" Yonji asked, resting his forehead in his palms.
"Not really," Niji sighed. "Hmm?" He said glancing down to his side, realizing something.
"Wake. Up. Wake. Up. Wake. Up," Luffy chainted as he tried to shake Zoro awake. "Zoro! It's breakfast time!"
"Yohoho, he's out cold as usual," Brook said.
"I still can't believe someone can be this heavy of a sleeper," Franky said watching Luffy as he was now jumping on Zoro's couch. "You think it's some kind of illness?" He asked looking down at Chopper.
"Probably, but I don't have time right now to attempt to treat it… if it is treatable."
"Let me handle this you amateurs!" Usopp said shoving Franky and Brook out of his way. He took a deep breath before saying, "Sanji's brothers hid your swords!"
"That curly eyebrowed, perverted, cook did what with my swords!" Zoro said, jumping to his feet, causing Luffy to fall on the floor.
"I said Sanji's brothers… not Sanji. Geez, why do you blame everything on Sanji?"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
The boys ran out the door to find out who was screaming.
"Hay! Niji! Calm down! What's the matter?" Ichiji said.
Niji was standing up by the mast, his hands fisted in his hair and electricity radiating off his entire body. Ichiji and Yonji now stood in front of him.
"IT'S GONE!"
"What's gone?" Sora asked walking out onto the deck from the girls dorm.
Everyone was now awake and standing either on the deck or in doorways of the rooms they were in. Except for Law that is, who had been setting at the bow of the ship reading all morning.
"MY LIGHT SPEED SWORD!"
"That's what looked different!" Law said looking up from his manga. "I knew something was off with your raid suit."
"Sword?" Zoro repeated. "You're a swordsman?"
"Technically we all are. But Niji's is the only reid suit that has a sword. Even Sanji knows how to wield one," Ichiji replied.
"You do?" Zeff asked looking up to the kitchen door were Sanji was standing.
"Sadly," he nodded. "But it did actually come in handy once, when we saved Robin from CP 9. Don't worry I used kitchen knives and it was on food, so I had no choice but to make an exception. It was a creep roman guy who pissed me off for daring to call himself a chef in front of me while disrespecting his ingredients. You don't want to know," he added seeing Ichiji's expression, which said "disrespecting his ingredients?"
"It's apart of your reid suit. How could it be missing? It should activate and deactivate with the suit every time," Yonji stated, turning back to Niji.
"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT!"
"Niji, calm down," Sora said, beginning to place a hand on his shoulder.
Ichiji grabbed her arm. "Electricity," he said when she looked up to him.
"Right. Think you, Ichiji.," She said before turning back to Niji. "Just take a breath and think. You've been wearing your reid suit every sense we left Germa, so it wouldn't of deactivated and there's no possible way you could sleep with it, so you probably laid it down somewhere. It has to be around here somewhere. Where is the last place you remember having it?"
"How could I possibly remember that when I don't even remember not having it!"
"Stop yelling. Where do you remember having it?" Sora asked.
"Germa…. But I used it there when Dad had us training the whole ni~" he trailed off. "Dad…. He has my enhancements, so maybe he thought he needed my sword too…," he said clamer this time, his electricity only radiating from his hands now.
"Possibly," Ichiji said.
"But when would he have had time to take it… and without you knowing?" Yonji asked.
"Niji, you had it the other day when he left Germa. Did you not?" Sanji asked walking down the steps to go stand near his brothers.
"Yeah...And he passed me when he walked off of that machine… Maybe he grabbed it without my realizing it."
"He could have. I mean we weren't really in any mental or physical state to pay attention to everything that he was doing," Reiju said. "Not to mention it can't deactivate if it's a certain distance away from you."
"That's true," Ichiji said. "Dad's far enough away it wouldn't deactivate.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" Niji yelled again, polling his own hair. "Next time I see him I'm electricity his ass so fast he'll regret he ever gave us enhancements in the first place!"
"Hey guys!" Usopp said trying to get everyone's attention as he and Carrot pointed out to the sea ahead of the ship.
"I want my sword back," Niji whined childishly as he leaned his head against his mother's shoulder.
"Hey guys!" Carrot repeated Usopp.
"We're going to reach the Island sometime today so you can get it back then."
"GUYS!" They both finally yelled.
"WHAT?!" Everyone else yelled turning to them.
"The island is right there," they said still pointing out to sea.
Everyone turned to look out past the bow of the ship and sure enough land was in the distance.
"Everyone prepare to dock ship!" Nami ordered.
"Aye!" The crew said as they ran around the ship.
"NOT YOU, SANJI!" Chopper yelled when Sanji began to walk to the helm. "Eh!"
"SANJI! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF BED!" Everyone, who wasn't Nami or his brothers, yelled, just now comprehending Sanji had been apart of this conversation the whole time despite them talking directly to him.
"You guys are slow," Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji said in the same dull, bunt tone and Nami nodded in agreement.
Sanji turned to face them. He smiled and said breakfast is ready for those who are not docking the ship. I'll prepare bento boxes for everyone else."
"YAY! SANJI'S COOKING!" Luffy hollered rocketing to the kitchen.
"YOU'RE HELPING THE CREW!" Sanji yelled at his captain. "I SAID I'LL MAKE YOU A BENTO BOX!"